The wind of the Age of Declining Dharma sweeps across every inch of the Earth.
Once upon a time, this land was also said to be filled with spiritual qi, where cultivators soared through the skies. Xuan Qingzi hid in the Greater Khingan Range, building a spring to nurture its spirit; Laozi traveled west through Hangu Pass and used the purple qi to break through the boundaries; the Yellow Emperor forged the Xuanyuan Sword, opening a path among the stars. But a thousand-year conflict in the cultivation world shattered the star trails connecting the mortal realm to the core star regions. Spiritual qi dwindled like a river cut off from its source, until even the word “cultivator” became a faint footnote in ancient texts.
Generation after generation, mortals lived and died, believing stories of people flying through the air and burrowing through the earth were mere myths. The few places where spiritual veins remained were blanketed in dust by the passage of time and hidden deep in forests no one had ever entered. Then, after the college entrance exams, a boy named Mu Cheng got lost while camping in the Greater Khingan Range.
He was an ordinary young man, one among countless others. He worried about his parents' graying hair and joked with his classmates about his future college choices. He had never imagined that cultivation would have anything to do with his life. But the gears of fate always turn when least expected. In a stone cave he stumbled into, a jade slip carved with cloud patterns burrowed into his brow. In a valley deep inside the mountain, a spirit-nurturing spring shimmered with tiny flecks of starlight. And the amber spirit-fruit wine offered by a spirit monkey somehow gave rise to pale green spiritual qi within him, setting him on the path of cultivation.
